“I’d like your help gathering some rules for eating well. My premise is that culture has a lot to teach us about how to choose, prepare and eat food, and that this wisdom is worth collecting and preserving before it disappears… Will you send me a food rule you try to live by? Something perhaps passed down by your parents or grandparents? Or something you’ve come up with to tell your children — or yourself?”

As someone whose mother regularly sent her to a suburban New York elementary school’s cafeteria with bamiya, mejadara and bulgur pilaf in her Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox, I particularly like rule number seven, “Don’t yuck someone’s yum.” Did I mention that I grew up in the eighties, before Pad Thai was a regular feature on our dinner plates? In a lunchroom full of PB and Js, baloney sandwiches and rectangular pizzas, my thermos and I were an easy target — not that I’m bitter or anything. To this day, though, my hairs rise when my eating habits are mocked. So back off, people. (Kidding!)

Number two was a rule in my house too, but that’s not nearly as sensitive a topic. Or is it?